How to market your mobile app

The App stores are overflowing with apps of all kinds. To be precise, the App Store has over 1.4 million apps while Google Play has over 1 million apps.

As the global popularity of mobile devices is growing, the competition among mobile app developers is also increasing. Having a great app idea is only half the battle won as knowing to market your mobile app is also very important. One needs to make sure to not only focus on downloads, but also on conversion of downloads.

The truth is that it is not easy to get your app discovered & if you think that a great app will get discovered on its merit, that could be a fatal assumption. You should get the word out that your app exists and promote your app so that users can see the benefits it provides.

Mobile apps developers need to invest in an app marketing strategy to spread the word about their app. Consider the following ways to promote and market your mobile app :

1. Pricing
App downloads that begin with a price and then get discounted have a tendency for huge spike in downloads. Freemium apps are free but consumers pay for other services within the app. These kind of apps generate huge revenue.

2. Apptimization
Search is a popular method people use to find/ discover apps. Apptimization is nothing but App store optimization. Apptimization is all about optimizing your app title, description and keywords to improve the search ranking of your apps in App store & Google Play.

3. Build a Responsive website
A responsive website will let mobile users to look at the features of your app during the decision making process. It will also optimize your website for mobile devices. More than 40% of users visit your website from mobile devices.

4. List apps in other App Stores
Though App store & Google Play account for the majority of app downloads, there are many other app stores available. So, remember to list your apps in these stores too.

5. Get apps reviewed
Have your app reviewed on app review sites. Create a list of app review websites and plan a detailed strategy even before your app is launched.

6. Social media
Maintain a strong social media presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+. If you do not find time to list in all the social media sites, at least build your presence in the social media that is used by majority of your target audience.

7. Blogging
Create a blog post describing the utility of your app. Add screenshots of your app in the blog. Upload a video that shows your app in action.

8. Leverage other media.
Promote your mobile app in other forms of advertising and media as well. Do not just use traditional marketing channels. You have to market your app on mobile media and other channels, as well.

9. Email Marketing
Leverage the power of Email newsletters. Since, reading & sending emails is a major activity for people, let them know about your mobile app through that as well.

10. Word-of-mouth Marketing
Ask users to rate your mobile app. The rating of an app is exhibited along with the download option in app store & Google Play, so potential users can know what existing users think of your app.